Floribunda

It's time for another episode in our occasional tour of Transit Mall art. Today we're on SW 5th Avenue near the corner of Stark St., home to one of the smaller works in TriMet's collection. This is Floribunda, which TriMet's Green Line public art guide describes thusly:

Floribunda, 1998

ARTIST

Mark Calderon

LOCATION

On 5th Avenue, between Stark and Washington streets

DESCRIPTION

Floribunda, one of a series of works Mark Calderon made in the late nineties, was inspired by the hairstyles found in Japanese Buddhist sculpture of the 12th and 13th centuries. Floribunda is the only free-standing work from this series, and the design and pattern of the hairstyle envelops the entire form, creating a finished work that is quite abstract.

I like to think I'm a reasonably imaginative person, but without reading this I never would have suspected this was based on a hairstyle. And obscure cooking implement, perhaps, or maybe a teapot, or possibly a curling rock.



Well before TriMet purchased it, Floribunda featured in a 1999 gallery show in Seattle. The gallery page mentions an edition of 3, so the one pictured there may not be the same one that graces our city streets. You'll note that it's shown sitting right on the floor, so the pedestal here is a TriMet addition. I suppose it would have been a tripping hazard otherwise.

A Seattle Times article about the show admired it:

Though many of the pieces in this show are meant to be mounted on walls, one of the best works is "Floribunda," a rotund, cast bronze piece that sits on the floor like a huge pumpkin. Its surface is covered with perfectly symmetrical grooves like the shells of certain ocean crustaceans or some gourds. But, like a number of other pieces in this show, "Floribunda" has a neat "topknot" that seems to refer to a head.

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In 2009 the same gallery hosted another show of more recent works by Mr. Calderon. Photos & info about which can be found here and here.

star magnolia

After taking photos of this tree every spring for several years now, I think I've figured out what it is. I figured it was some sort of magnolia, but the petals were too long and skinny. I think we're looking at a star magnolia, if I'm not mistaken, which is a type of tree and not a Southern Sci-Fi movie. At least that's what I think the tree is. As always, feel free to correct me if I've ID'd it wrong or anything.

spider, tanner springs

As seen on the wall-o-rusty-rails at Tanner Springs. I should point out that these were taken with macro gear and the spider is shown much larger than actual size. I'm not a spider expert, and I can't identify the beastie shown here. Feel free to leave a comment if you have any ideas about what it might be.

lichens, jamison square

Tiny lichens on the trunk of a nondescript little tree, along 11th Avenue next to Jamison Square.

The Flogger

Today's adventure takes us up to industrial Northwest Portland, to a parking lot at NW 25th & Vaughn, near the big ESCO steel mill. The statue shown here is The Flogger, by Frederic Littman (who also created "Joy (Pioneer Woman)" and "Farewell to Orpheus", among other works). In the past I've generally said that his style is not really my cup of tea. I think I've used the word "lumpy" before. But this one actually works. Here the style seems to convey power and motion and determination. So it's possible that it's not the style that I don't care for, it's that the style and subject matter often don't mesh like they do here.

The company's website has a photo of the statue on their 'about' page. An Oregonian article profiles the company, and interviews one executive who started out at the company as a flogger. At this point you're probably wondering what a flogger is. In the steel industry, I mean. It seems that when you mold molten steel into a form, you often end up with extra steel stuck to your new metal part. A flogger uses a sledgehammer to break the extra metal off of the molded part. whereas a grinder does basically the same thing, except with a grinding machine. I'm going to go ahead and guess that "grinder" is the next step up on the career ladder if you start as a flogger. It's fortunate that a career ladder exists, at least; outside of the steel industry, the word "flogger" on a resume could prove to be a hindrance. I mean, unless you're interviewing for a professional S&M gig or a job with the CIA, not that there's much of a difference between the two anymore.

This post is a bit of an experiment in that these are camera phone photos. I'm not sure I've used phone photos here before except as a novelty, DSLR snob that I am. But these seemed to turn out OK, and uploading to Flickr instead of Twitpic seems to result in better image quality. The 40D is still obviously the high quality option, but it would be nice not to have to lug a big camera around quite so much. I say this as someone who turned mumble-mumble years old in December and whose lower back tried to seize up this morning as he jogged across the street to avoid traffic, while lugging -- you guessed it -- a big hefty camera bag.

Focus Fountain

Here's another of the swanky new fountains at CityCenter in Las Vegas. A press release about CityCenter fountains describes it:

Along the outer entrance circle rises Focus, an expansive, 270-foot-long curved water wall made of highly textured stone. Focus emphasizes the ever-changing, choreographed patterns that effortlessly sweep across the immense length and height of the wall. The all-enveloping water flow creates an ocean-like timbre that calms the area leading to ARIA’s lobby.

The water also cools the air outside the entrance, which is nice if you're standing outside in the 115 degree sun waiting for a taxi. So it's, I hesitate to use the word practical because this is Las Vegas, and we're talking about a huge water feature in the middle of the Mojave Desert, located at the entrance to a ten billion dollar casino complex with its own monorail system. So I think utilitarian is probably out too. Functional? Is that a better word? Is there a better word?

It's still nice on a hot day, whatever you want to call it.

Ruckel Creek Falls expedition

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Today's adventure takes us out to obscure Ruckel Creek Falls in the Columbia River Gorge. Despite its obscurity it's quite easy to get to, once you know how. Ruckel Creek is far overshadowed by Eagle Creek and its many waterfalls just to the west, and this waterfall is really not all that big by Gorge standards. So it's overlooked, but not really unfairly overlooked. On the other hand, if you've been to all the better known waterfalls in the area and you're in the mood to track down one you've never seen before, this is one of the easier ones to do. And then you can tell people about the obscure waterfall you found and thus obtain valuable street cred, if you're into that.

The easiest way to get there is to park at Eagle Creek and walk east. There are two ways to do this: There's a flat asphalt bike path that begins next to the fish hatchery, which runs right next to I-84 for part of its length. The path is actually a repurposed & repaved segment of the old Gorge Highway, including the original bridge over Ruckel Creek circa 1914 or so. The path continues on to the town of Cascade Locks. So don't be totally surprised if you come across joggers or kids on bikes. Actually you could park in Cascade Locks and walk from there. That way would be a couple of miles longer and kind of monotonous most of the way, but you wouldn't need to buy a Forest Service day pass to park, and you could grab an ice cream cone at the East Wind on the way back. But I digress.

There's also a trail that winds around along the edge of the Eagle Creek campground for a bit before dumping you out on the aforementioned bike path. If you want this to feel a little more like a real hike, by all means take the trail, but it's really not all that scenic. If you're just trying to get to the waterfall, you might as well just take the bike path the whole way.

Finding the falls from the path ought to be easy, but for some reason there are no signs for the falls, and there's no official trail to the base. So I'm going to reveeal the semi-super, semi-secret trick for finding the falls.

First, as you're walking along the path, you'll come across a grassy meadow. If you come to the bridge over Ruckel Creek, you've gone too far. You can look down from the bridge and see the top of the falls, but to get to the base you'll need to backtrack a little. In any case, you're looking for an unexplained & unmarked turnout off the path that looks like this:

The above photo is pointing west, just past the turnout. The turnout is where you leave the path and go cross country for a bit. Which sounds vastly more adventurous than it really is. You just need to walk to the far end of the meadow until you come to the edge of the forest. There's no real trailhead here, but if you can find a spot that looks like the next photo, you've found one of the unofficial trails. There may be other entrances, and this one may not look the same when you visit.

Your best bet is to bring a GPS gadget along. You're looking for something in the vicinity of GPS coordinates 45.644810, -121.919522 (i.e. the green arrow on the embedded map). This is the location of the trail, not the location of the waterfall itself.

If you can find the sorta-trailhead, just follow the trail downhill from there. If you can't find it, don't worry. Once you're in the woods you ought to be able to hear the falls, so just walk toward the sound. The falls are going to be downhill and should be on your right. If you find the creek first, just follow it upstream. I don't have exact coordinates for the waterfall itself as I couldn't get a GPS fix there, but it really shouldn't be hard to find.

So there you are, in front of Ruckel Creek Falls in all its glory. If you're up for a real challenge, it seems this is not the only waterfall on Ruckel Creek. There are a number of others (the exact count varies) and several are significantly taller than this one. But getting to them involves bushwhacking through rough terrain. Which I may or may not get around to at some future date.

All of these other waterfalls are even more obscure than the one we're visiting here, and there's a lack of agreement on what their names ought to be. In particular, it's not clear whether this one is "Lower Ruckel Creek Falls", or whether that name applies to one further upstream leaving this one without a proper name. But I've also seen this one called simply "Ruckel Creek Falls". I'm going to go with that in the name of simplicity.

Elsewhere on the interwebs, you can find more info about the falls at Ash Creek Images and
Waterfalls Northwest, and lots of info about all the waterfalls on Ruckel Creek at Oregon Hikers Field Guide.